by Lisa Kleypas
A nervous thrill went down Annabelle’s spine, and she forced herself to continue brushing her hair with calm strokes, though her grip was too tight on the handle, and her fingers were shaking. Simon’s gaze wandered over the drifts of lace and muslin that covered her body. Still dressed in his formal black wedding suit, he approached her slowly and came to stand before her as she remained sitting in the chair. To her surprise, he lowered to his knees to bring their faces level, his thighs bracketing her slender calves. A large hand lifted to the shimmering fall of her hair, and he combed his fingers through it, watching with fascination as the golden brown strands slipped across his knuckles.
Although Simon was immaculately dressed, there were signs of dishevelment that lured her attention… the short forelocks of his hair falling over his forehead, the loosened knot of his ice gray silk cravat. Dropping the brush to the floor, Annabelle used her fingers to smooth his hair in a tentative stroke. The sable filaments were thick and gleaming, springing willfully against her fingertips. Simon held still for her as she untied the cravat, the heavy silk saturated with the warmth of his skin. His eyes contained an expression that caused a ticklish sensation in the pit of her stomach.
“Every time I see you,” he murmured, “I think you couldn’t possibly become any more beautiful—and you always prove me wrong.”
Letting the cravat hang on either side of his neck, Annabelle smiled at the compliment. She jumped a little in her seat as she felt his hand close around hers. His mouth curved slightly as he gave her a quizzical glance. “You’re nervous?”
Annabelle nodded, her fingers unresisting in his as he held and chafed them gently. Simon spoke quietly, seeming to choose his words with unusual care. “Sweetheart …I assume that your experiences with Lord Hodgeham were not pleasant. But I hope you’ll trust me when I say that it doesn’t have to be like that. Whatever your fears are—”
“Simon,” she interrupted with an apprehensive croak, and cleared her throat. “That is very kind of you. A-And the fact that you are prepared to be so understanding about it… well …I appreciate that. But… I’m afraid I wasn’t entirely forthcoming about my relationship with Hodgeham.” Seeing his sudden curious stillness, and the way his expression had been wiped clean of emotion, Annabelle took a deep, steadying breath. “The truth is, Hodgeham did indeed come to our house some evenings, and he did pay some of our bills in return for …for…” Pausing, she felt her throat contract until it was hard to force the words through. “But…I wasn’t actually the one that he was visiting.”
Simon’s dark eyes widened slightly. “What?”
“I never slept with him,” she admitted. “His arrangement was with my mother.”
He stared at her, dumbfounded. “Holy hell,” he breathed.
“It started a year ago,” she said, her voice edged with defensiveness. “Our circumstances were desperate. We had endless bills and no means to pay them. The income from my mother’s jointure had dwindled because it had been invested badly. Lord Hodgeham had been sniffing at my mother’s heels for some time…I don’t know precisely when his evening visits began …butI saw his hat and cane in the entrance hall at odd hours, and the debts eased a little. I realized what was happening, but I never said anything about it. And I should have.” She sighed and rubbed her temples. “At the party, Hodgeham made it clear that he had tired of my mother and wanted me to take her place. He threatened to expose the whole secret… ‘with embellishments,’ he said…and we would be ruined. I refused him, but somehow my mother managed to keep him quiet.”
“Why did you let me think that you were sleeping with him?”
Annabelle shrugged uncomfortably. “You just assumed so…and there didn’t seem to be any reason to correct you, as I certainly never thought that we would end up like this. And then you proposed to me anyway, which led me to conclude that it wasn’t especially important to you whether or not I was a virgin.”
“It wasn’t,” Simon murmured, his voice sounding strange. “I wanted you regardless. But now that I…” He broke off and shook his head in amazement. “Annabelle—just to be clear—are you saying that you’ve never been to bed with a man before?”
She tugged at her hands, for his grip had become crushingly tight. “Well… yes.”
“Yes, you have, or no, you haven’t?”
“I have never slept with anyone,” Annabelle said precisely, and gave him a questioning glance. “Are you annoyed because I didn’t tell you earlier? I’m sorry. But it’s not the sort of thing one can just blurt out over tea, or in the entrance hall …‘Here’s your hat, and by the way, I’m a virgin’—”
“I’m not annoyed.” Simon’s gaze traveled over her pensively. “I’m just wondering what the hell to do with you now.”
“The same thing you were going to do before I told you?” she asked hopefully.
Simon stood and pulled her to her feet and embraced her rather gingerly, as if he feared she might shatter with too much pressure. He pressed his face into the shining fall of her hair and breathed deeply. “Believe me, I’ll get around to it,” he said, sounding bemused. “But first it seems there are a few things I need to ask you.”
Annabelle pushed her arms inside the front of his coat and slid them around his hard, sleek torso. The heat of his body had permeated the thin fabric of his shirt, and she shivered pleasantly as she delved into the male-scented warmth of his embrace. “Yes?” she prompted.
Until that moment she had never witnessed Simon being less than fully articulate…but he spoke with exceptional hesitancy, as if this was a kind of discussion he’d never been obliged to have before. “Do you know what to expect? Do you have all the…er, necessary information?”
“I think so,” Annabelle replied, smiling at the interesting discovery that his heart was beating very fast against her cheek. “My mother and I had a talk just a little while ago—after which I was strongly tempted to ask for an annulment.”
Suddenly, he gave a muffled laugh. “I’d better claim my husbandly rights without delay, then.” Taking her fingers in his hot, light grip, he lifted them to his mouth. The touch of his breath was like steam. “What did she tell you?” he murmured against her fingertips.
“After imparting the basic facts, she said that I should let you do as you wished and try not to complain if I didn’t like something. And she suggested that if it becomes too unpleasant, I should turn my mind to thoughts of that enormous bank account that you opened for me.”
Annabelle regretted the words as soon as they left her lips, expecting that Simon might be offended by such candor. But he had begun to laugh huskily.
“That’s a refreshing change from thinking of England.” He drew his head back to look at her. “Shall I woo you with whispers of balance transfers and rates of interest, then?”
Turning her hand in his, Annabelle let her fingertips graze the surface of his lips, lingering at the velvety edge, then drifting down to the masculine scrape of his chin. “That won’t be necessary. Just say the usual things.”
“No…the usual things won’t do for you.” Simon tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear and cupped her cheek in his palm as he leaned forward. His mouth teased hers into yielding openness, while his hands found the outline of her body within the ample billows of lace. With no corset to constrict her ribs, she could feel his touch through the thin veil of her gown. The stroke of his hands along her unbound sides caused her to quiver, the tips of her breasts turning exquisitely sensitive. His palm traveled slowly over her front, finding the pliant weight of one breast, and he made a gentle cup of his fingers, lifting the vulnerable flesh. Her breath halted momentarily as his thumb nudged her nipple into delicately aching distension.
“It’s usually painful for a woman, the first time,” he murmured.
“Yes, I know.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
The admission touched and surprised her. “My mother says it doesn’t last for long,” she said.
“The pain?”
“No, the rest of it,” she said, and for some reason that made him laugh again.
“Annabelle…” His mouth drifted along her throat. “I’ve wanted you since the first moment I saw you standing outside that panorama, digging for coins in your purse. I couldn’t take my eyes from you. I could hardly believe you were real.”
“You stared at me for the entire show,” she said, gasping a little as he nibbled at the silken lobe of her ear. “I doubt you learned a single thing about the fall of the Roman Empire.”
“I learned that you have the softest lips I’ve ever kissed.”
“You have a novel way of introducing yourself.”
“I couldn’t help it.” His hand skimmed gently up and down her side. “Standing next to you in the darkness was the most unholy temptation I’d ever experienced. All I could think about was how adorable you were and how much I wanted you. When the lights went out completely, I couldn’t stand it any longer.” A note of masculine smugness entered his voice as he added, “And you didn’t push me away.”
“I was too surprised!”
“That was the reason you didn’t object?”
“No,” Annabelle admitted, tilting her face so that her cheek brushed against his. “I liked your kiss. You know that I did.”
He smiled at that. “I had hoped it wasn’t all one-sided.” He looked into her eyes, their faces so close that their noses were nearly touching. “Come to bed with me,” he whispered, a nearly imperceptible question in his voice.
She nodded with a shaky sigh and let him lead her to the large four-poster bed, covered with a counterpane made of heavy quilted burgundy silk. Drawing back the covers, Simon lifted Annabelle onto the slick-pressed linens, and she slid over to make room for him. He stood by the bed, watching her face as he removed the rest of his formal clothes. The contrast between the neatly tailored garments, so eminently civilized, and the raw masculine power of the body beneath, was disconcerting. As Annabelle had expected, he possessed an unusually muscular torso, his back and shoulders rippling, his stomach tightly corrugated. His swarthy skin was tinted amber-gold in the lamplight, the surface of his shoulders gleaming as rich and taut as freshly cast metal. Even the dark fleece that covered his chest could not soften the powerful vaulting of flesh and bone. Annabelle doubted that a healthier, more vigorous-looking man could be found anywhere. Perhaps he didn’t match the fashionable ideal of a pale, slender-framed aristocrat…but Annabelle thought he was altogether splendid.
Pangs of excited apprehension went through her stomach as he joined her on the bed. “Simon,” she said, breathing fast as he took her into his arms, “my mother didn’t tell me if… if tonight there was something that I should do for you…”
His hand began to play in her hair, his fingers drifting over her scalp in a way that sent hot tingles down her spine. “You don’t have to do anything tonight. Just let me hold you…touch you…discover some of the things that please you…”
His hand found the placket of mother-of-pearl buttons at the back of her gown. Annabelle closed her eyes as she felt the frothy mass of ruffled lace loosening over her shoulders. “Do you remember that night in the music room?” she whispered, gasping as she felt him ease the gown from her breasts. “When you kissed me in the alcove?”
“Every blistering second,” he whispered back, pulling her arms from the billowing sleeves. “Why do you mention it?”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” she confessed. She wriggled to help him strip the gown away from her body, a blush covering every inch of exposed skin.
“Neither could I,” he admitted. His hand slid over her breast, cupping the cool roundness until the peak was rosy and hard in his palm. “We seem to be a flammable combination—even more so than I had expected.”
“It’s not always like this, then?” she asked, letting her fingers explore the deep groove of his spine and the tough-knit muscle on either side of it.
Her touch, simple as it was, disrupted the rhythm of his breath as he leaned over her. “No,” he murmured, resting one long leg against the seam of her tightly cinched thighs. “Hardly ever.”
“Why—” she began to question him, but stopped with a faint moan as he traced the satiny undercurve of her breast with the edge of his thumb. Containing her narrow rib cage in his hands, he bent over her chest. His lips were hot and light as they opened gently over a tightly budded nipple. She let out a gasping cry at the tender tugs of his mouth, his tongue flicking her sensitive flesh until she could no longer remain still beneath him. Her legs parted involuntarily, and immediately he filled the space with his own hair-roughened thigh. As his hands and mouth wandered slowly over her body, Annabelle lifted her hands to his head, letting the thick waves slip through her fingers as she had so often longed to do. He kissed the fragile skin of her wrists, and the insides of her elbows, and the shallow depressions between her ribs, leaving no part of her unexplored. She let him do as he wished, quivering as she felt the prickle of his night beard contrasting with the silky wet heat of his mouth. But when he reached her navel, and she felt the slick point of his tongue enter the little hollow, she rolled away from him with a shocked inhalation. “No… Simon, I… please …”
Immediately he levered upward to gather her in his arms, smiling into her scarlet face. “Too much?” he asked huskily. “I’m sorry—for a moment I forgot that it’s new to you. Here, let me hold you. You’re not frightened, are you?”
Before she could answer, his mouth had settled on hers, dragging gently back and forth. The hair on his chest abraded her breasts like coarse velvet, her nipples rubbing against him with each breath she took. Her throat vibrated with low sounds, evincing the pleasure that had escaped her crumbling restraint. She gasped sharply as his fingers drifted over her stomach and his knee intruded more deeply between hers. Widening the angle between her thighs, he slipped his fingers into the soft feminine curls, exploring her swollen flesh. He parted her, found the silken peak that throbbed at his touch, and stroked just above it with sweet, dancing lightness.
She gasped against his mouth, her flesh heating into melting pliancy. A passion-blush covered her skin, dappling the paleness with rosy stains. Simon sought the opening of her body, his gentle fingertip insinuating carefully into the fluid-drenched suppleness. Her heart pounded, and all her limbs stiffened against the heightening pleasure. Rolling away from him with a muffled exclamation, she stared at Simon with wide eyes.
He lay on his side, raised on one elbow, his dark hair disheveled and his gaze bright with passion and subtle amusement. It seemed as if he understood what had begun to happen inside her and was fascinated by her innocent consternation. “Don’t go anywhere,” he murmured, smiling. “You don’t want to miss the best part.” Slowly, he pulled her back beneath him, arranging her body with caressing hands. “Sweetheart, I won’t hurt you,” he whispered against her cheek. “Let me pleasure you…let me inside you…”
He continued to murmur to her, while he kissed and caressed his way stealthily down her body. By the time his dark head reached the shadowy ingress between her thighs, Annabelle was moaning repeatedly. His mouth found her, nuzzling past delicately crinkled hair and tiny silken ruffles of pink flesh, his tongue gliding over her in curling strokes. She shrank from him bashfully, but he gripped her hips in his hands and explored her mercilessly, the tip of his tongue gliding over every tender fold and crevice. The sight of his dark head between her thighs was a visceral jolt to her senses. The room around them blurred, and she felt as if she was floating amid layers of shadow and candlelight, conscious of nothing but exquisite, twisting rapture. She could hide nothing from him, could do nothing except surrender to the demanding mouth that solicited unholy delight from her awakening flesh. He centered on the peak of her sex, licking softly, steadily, until it finally became too much to endure, and she felt her hips rise of their own accord, quivering against his mouth, heat jetting through her pleasure-racked limbs.
Giv
ing her sated flesh a last savoring lick, Simon worked his way back up her body. Her thighs were limp as he pushed them wide apart, the head of his shaft nudging against her. Looking down into her dazed face, Simon smoothed her hair back from her forehead.
Her lips curved in a wobbly smile as she glanced up at him. “I forgot all about my bank account,” she said, and he laughed softly.
His thumb brushed over the edge of her forehead, where fine skin blended into flossy hair. “Poor Annabelle…” The pressure between her legs increased, delivering the first intimation of pain. “I’m afraid the next part won’t be nearly as enjoyable. For you, at any rate.”
“I don’t mind…I…I’m just so glad that it’s you.”
No doubt it was an odd thing for a bride to say on her wedding night, but it brought a smile to his lips. He lowered his head and began to whisper in her ear, even as he tightened his hips to breach her untried flesh. She forced herself to hold still despite the instinct to writhe away from the intrusion. “Sweetheart…” His breath became ragged, and as he paused inside her, he seemed to struggle for self-control. “Yes, that’s it…just a little more…” He moved in another careful advance, and hesitated again. “A little more…” He deepened his entry in lingering degrees, carefully courting her body into accepting him. “More…”
“How much more?” she gasped. He was too hard, the pressure too intense, and she wondered anxiously how this could ever be anything but uncomfortable.
Simon gritted his teeth at the effort it took to hold still. “I’m about halfway there,” he finally managed, an apologetic note in his voice.
“Half—” Annabelle began to protest with a shaky laugh, and winced as he pushed again. “Oh, this is impossible, I can’t, I can’t—”